Bücher online kostenlos Kostenlos Online Lesen
The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

Titel: The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Andre Norton
Vom Netzwerk:
forth flashes of gem fire when he breathed. He wore at his belt not the standard stun gun of a spaceman, but a weapon which resembled the more deadly Patrol blaster, as well as a long knife housed in a jeweled and fringed sheath. To the eye he was an example of barbaric force tamed and trimmed to civilized efficiency.
    He saluted, palm out, and spoke Galactic Basic with only a suggestion of accent.
    “I am Kort Asaki. I believe Captain Jellico expects me.”
    “Yes, sir!” Dane snapped to attention. So this was the Chief Ranger from fabulous Khatka, Xecho’s sister planet.
    The other ascended the cat ladder easily, missing no detail of the ship’s interior as he passed. His expression was still one of polite interest as his guide rapped on the panel door of Jellico’s cabin. And a horrible screech from Queex, the captain’s pet hoobat, drowned out any immediate answer. Then followed that automatic thump on the floor of the blue-feathered, crab-parrot-toad’s cage, announcing that its master was in residence.
    Since the captain’s cordial welcome extended only to his guest, Dane regretfully descended to the mess cabin to make unskilled preparations for supper—though there was not much you could do to foul up concentrates in an automatic cooker.
    “Company?” Tau sat beyond the cooking unit nursing a mug of Terran coffee. “And do you have to serve music with the meals, especially that particular selection?”
    Dane flushed, stopped whistling in mid-note. “TerraBound” was old and pretty well worn out; he didn’t know why he always unconsciously sounded off with that.
    “A Chief Ranger from Khatka just came on board,” he reported, carefully offhand, as he busied himself reading labels. He knew better than to serve fish or any of its derivatives in disguise again.
    “Khatka!” Tau sat up straighter. “Now there’s a planet worth visiting.”
    “Not on a Free Trader’s pay,” commented Dane.
    “You can always hope to make a big strike, boy. But what I wouldn’t give to lift ship for there!”
    “Why? You’re no hunter. How come you want to heat jets for that port?”
    “Oh, I don’t care about the game preserves, though they’re worth seeing, too. It’s the people themselves—”
    “But they’re Terran settlers, or at least from Terran stock, aren’t they?”
    “Sure,” Tau sipped his coffee slowly. “But there are settlers and settlers, son. And a lot depends upon when they leftTerra and why, and who they were—also what happened to them after they landed out here.”
    “And Khatkans are really special?”
    “Well, they have an amazing history. The colony was founded by escaped prisoners—and just one racial stock. They took off from Earth close to the end of the Second Atomic War. That was a race war, remember? Which made it doubly ugly.” Tau’s mouth twisted in disgust. “As if the color of a man’s skin makes any difference in what lies under it! One side in that line-up tried to take over Africa—herded most of the natives into a giant concentration camp and practiced genocide on a grand scale. Then they were cracked themselves, hard and heavy. During the confusion some survivors in the camp staged a revolt, helped by the enemy. They captured an experimental station hidden in the center of the camp and made a break into space in two ships which had been built there. That voyage must have been a nightmare, but they were desperate. Somehow they made it out here to the rim and set down on Khatka without power enough to take off again—and by then most of them were dead.
    “But we humans, no matter what our race, are a tough breed. The refugees discovered that climatically their new world was not too different from Africa, a lucky chance which might happen only once in a thousand times. So they thrived, the handful who survived. But the white technicians they had kidnaped to run the ships didn’t. For they set up a color bar in reverse. The lighter your skin, the lower you were in the social scale. By that kind of selective breeding the present Khatkans are very dark indeed.
    “They reverted to the primitive for survival. Then, about two hundred years ago, long before the first Survey Scout discovered them, something happened. Either the parent race mutated, or, as sometimes occurs, a line of people of superior gifts emerged—not in a few isolated births, but with surprising regularity in five family clans. There was a short period of power struggle until they

Weitere Kostenlose Bücher